Using the ‘Devel’ Version of Bioconductor

Which version of R?

Package authors should develop against the version of R that will be
available to users when the Bioconductor devel branch becomes the
Bioconductor release branch.

R has a ‘.y’ release in x.y.z every year, but Bioconductor has a .y
release (where current devel becomes release) every 6 months.

When the next (typically mid-April) .y releases of R and
Bioconductor coincide, Bioc-devel is based on R-devel.

When the next (typically mid-October) .y release of Bioconductor
corresponds to no change in R’s y, Bioc-devel is based on release R.

This means that, from mid-October through mid-April, Bioconductor
developers should be developing against R-devel. From mid-April to
mid-October, developers should use R-release (actually, the R snapshot
from the R-x-y-branch) for Bioconductor development.

Using Bioc-devel

In order to use the devel version of Bioconductor during the current
release cycle, you must install R-devel: